


The Ascension Project

by Straumoy



Series: Power Girl Short Stories [1]
Category: Power Girl (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Drama, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-09 17:41:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5549516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Straumoy/pseuds/Straumoy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Power Girl has made the world her enemy as she's taken upon herself to stop the emergence of any other super-powered humans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Ascension Project

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: While confident in my writing, English isn't my main language. As such, typos and grammatical errors will show their ugly heads every now and then. If you spot a particular glaring one, please let me know and I'll fix it.
> 
> This one shot story is a reply to a writing prompt originally posted at www.reddit.com/writingprompts under the title "Superhero or a group of superheroes whose mission is to stop the emergence of any other super-powered humans."

The air was filled with the chilling scream of the air raid siren as Harold "Hal" Jordan ran across the airbase, a small girl no older than 12 holding his hand and trying her hardest to keep up. Like distant thunder the sound of muffled explosions rolled across the base, she was close and getting closer still. Sharp, angry rattling sound of heavy machine gun fire tapped against something solid as steel rang out in short bursts. Another explosion, louder this time, close enough to feel it tickle underneath your boots. Harold yanked up the door to the hangar, his visibly trembled the short second it took for his fingers to swiftly fold themselves around the handle. Shrieks of jet engines powering up stung like a long steel spike in his ears, the muffled sound of men barking orders to one another was soon drowned with the escalating sound of helicopter rotors swirling into motion. Stepping inside, the young girl's hand slid from Harold's hand, a moist slip of hand sweat and bending over with her small hands resting on trembling knees, she heaved heavily for air, swallowing hollow mouthfuls whenever her breath allowed it. Closing the door shut with a cold metallic clang that ran high to the hangar ceiling, Harold spun on his feet and paced deeper into the hangar, his eyes shifting from left to right, searching, cataloguing, considering, thinking. 

"We can do this." He mumbled to himself, taking a few deeper breaths in some effort to calm down his already rattled nerves. 

Outside there was the sound of a loud explosion, metal groaning and protesting against a force easily exceeding the durability of the metal while flames angrily hissed their warm breaths at anyone or anything that dared to come within their reach. Gun fire came next, lots of it and more than just a few dozen bullets punctured holes in the thin metallic front gates of the hangar, prompting Harold to dive forward and push down the little girl, shielding her body with his own. She screamed, covered her cute small ears, closed her clear, brilliant blue eyes and trembled like a scared rabbit underneath Harold's larger, well trained frame. Just beyond the front gates the sound of gun fire died down as a distinctive swooshing sound of something large cut through the air at tremendous speeds, yet appeared to stop on a dime. Each swoosh was followed by metal groaning and grown men crying out in horror, pleading for their lives before their rapid words spiralled downwards into a incoherent vortex of high pitched screams of pain as the snapping sounds of bones breaking like cheap woodwork made the pitches shift gears. 

"I'm scared..." The little girl whimpered in a small voice, lingering on the edge of hearing. 

Peering up at the looming front gate, Harold could see the small bullet holes in the it was joined by fist sized holes that announced their arrival like violent shotgun blasts and fingers clad in blue leather leered their way in like the crude and calculating legs of a spider before they snapped into an iron clad grip of angry talons, stabbing into the metal and peeling it away as if it was made of fragile tin foil. Expanding the hole horizontally to the width of a grown man's reach, forming a brutally torn triangle pointing downwards, the figure on the other side stomped the bottom of the triangle opening to the ground as if crushing an annoying bug, the thumb rattled the hangar and crushed the asphalt on the ground, before sliding its leg along the ground to the left, shoving the metal out of the way. Stepping forward through the twisted opening came a woman, tall and muscular with blazingly blue eyes locked in an angry glare. Her frame bulked with muscle, the low-cut form-fitting white bodysuit hung on to every curve of her torso like a painted on swimsuit with arms. Firmly wrapped around her neck was a mock turtleneck, torn and cut from combat. The woman's legs were laid bare thanks to the high cut legs while a wide, shallow oval hole positioned at centre chest removed any doubt that she was indeed a woman. Her hands clad in blue elbow gloves were curled up into fists trembling with tension, while her blue boots carried her forward with short steps that each landed with a thumb rippling through the ground, cracking the asphalt underneath her. A loose fitting red slip-on hip belt with a gold oval belt buckle swung around her curvy hips, and a long gold silky rope tugged at the neckline as a red cape, fastened at the left collarbone, swayed and buckled in the air. 

"Hello Karen." Harold said, rising to his feet and helping the little girl back up as he did. 

The woman stopped, her eyes narrowing on Harold. She tensed up for a brief second, then let out a sharp sigh before her frame lost a lot of its tension. Running her right hand through her short blond hair, fingers spread wide Karen allowed herself a faint smile, her eyes closing before returning to a hard glare as her hand landed at her side. Harold, in his green air force overalls, swallowed as his legs shifted to a wider stance while the little girl slipped behind him, peering out from his left side, her small slender fingers slightly tucking at his overalls. His left arm folded over her shoulder and gave it a few light pats, sweat forming on his forehead while he faced Karen's glare head on. 

"Walk away Hal." Karen said, her voice gruff and left no doubt that she was not suggesting let alone asking what he ought to do. 

"I'm afraid I can't do that Karen." Harold replied, his fingers forming in a firm and assuring grip on the little girls shoulder. 

"I don't want to hurt you Hal, I owe you..." Karen started, hesitated before she corrected herself. "I owe us that much." 

"Not happening Karen." Harold retorted, the girl shrinking even more behind him. 

"You know what they've done, what that girl is, right?" Karen said, her words somehow found their way through her clenched teeth. 

"I'm not sure what you've heard or learned Karen, but this one right here is not worth your trouble." Harold said, his voice soft. 

"No." Karen's voice came out flat, cold and unyielding. "I'll end them all." 

"Jesus Christ Karen! Listen to yourself!" Harold shouted, his words rang with a metallic echo inside the hangar. "You're attacking nations, killing people in some crazy witch hunt for children." 

"THEY ARE NOT CHILDREN!" Karen screamed, her eyes blazing with enough raw energy to illuminate her eye sockets. 

"Then what are they Karen, huh?!" Harold challenged her. 

"Abominations! Freaks of nature...!" Karen's rage seemed to put a block on her vocabulary as in her arm flailing tantrum, she visibly struggled with spewing out her anger in tangible words. "They are not natural!" 

"Ha! Well isn't that rich, especially coming from you?" Harold snorted, unimpressed. "3 years Karen, 3 long years we dated, you and me. All that time you were always withdrawn, distant, never really yourself, scared of being viewed and judged as an abominations." 

"Shut up, shut up, shut up!" Karen squatted down, covering her ears. 

"You of all people should welcome and embrace these girls." Harold pressed. "You'd never be alone anymore, you'd finally have children Karen." 

With a sharp breath Karen froze, her eyes wide at first before shrinking down to a sharp angry glare, rising slowly from her squat, hands sinking from her ears down to the sides of her hips as they gradually crumbled into balled up fists trembling with tension, making the leather gloves squeal. Her jaws pushed and shoved against one another and her eye sockets flared up again before her head swiftly turned to the right and two violent beams of superheated orange coloured plasma sliced out from her eyes, across the ground, up and through the wall on the far side. Cries of pain, the sound of agony became drowned in ammunition misfiring and muffled pleas of not being left behind collided with curses and helpless prayers to God, mom and dad. Karen turned her attention back to Harold, a slow and deliberate motion as the illumination of her eye sockets faded away. Harold eyed the two streams of molten asphalt and the melted metal cuts in the hangar walls, swallowing hard before giving Karen all of his attention. 

"That... THING..." Karen said, spitting out the word with a deliberate disgust while pointing an accusing finger on the little girl behind Harold. "..is no child of mine." 

"Not by birth." Harold agreed, nodding a sweaty face. "Still they're all carrying a part of you in them. Hell, she even has your eyes Karen." 

"No..." Karen said, her angry voice cracking, tears streaking down her cheeks. 

"You always wanted a family right?" Harold's stance relaxed, his voice soft and gentle. "This is our chance Karen. You, me and Olivia here." 

"Not like this..." Karen objected, her frame stood stiff and brittle. 

"It's part of the reason why I agreed to do it." Harold admitted. "Give them locks of your hair." 

"You... it was you?" Karen hissed, her anger flaring up again with renewed strength and intensity. 

Fingers curved like talons reached out with the speed of bullets and dug into the side of a forklift, puncturing the metal before twisting it as the grip tightened. Raising the 5500kg heavy machine high over her head with hardly any effort, Karen glared down on Harold with a face twisted into a horrible mix of clenched jaws, naked teeth, eyes and cheeks moist with tears. A thundering explosion rang through the hangar, the flames and smoke giving Karen a quick embrace before shattering the windows. The gust of the shockwave knocked Harold and Olivia off their feet while Karen staggered forward half a step before finding her balance. A quick glance over her left shoulder revealed the barrel smoking of a M1 Abrams tank a few hundred meters down the base. Shifting her hips around with the forklift still held high over her head, Karen gave a short kick with her right foot and shot out of the hangar like a speeding bullet, tearing through the hangar front gate as if it was made of a wet newspaper. 

Harold's ears rung with an uncomfortable loud shriek from the explosion, he found Olivia in his arms trembling and curled up like a newborn kitten. On shaking legs he tried to get to his feet while holding Olivia in trembling, cut and bruised arms. As his vision cleared and let him focus enough to see more than a couple of meters ahead of him, Harold saw Karen unleash her infernal fury on the M1 Abrams tank, using the forklift as a crude club before discarding its twisted and battered remains, retorting to peeling off the tanks dented armor with her bare hands. Harold was sure that the tanks crew were screaming in fear even if he couldn't hear them, he could see them unload their guns into Karen's face and chest, though aside from a bullet that hit her right in the eye, making her flinch, it was a futile effort. Her heat vision flared up again to full throttle, keeping it on a constant burn as she tucked her head inside a hole she'd dug through the armor, looking around inside, the orange colored plasma beams stabbed through the tank like heated needles. 

Turning his attention to Olivia, Harold got her back on her feet. Olivia's thin frame trembled as if she was freezing, the clear and brilliant eyes on her face were wide and unblinking, darting around restlessly from behind her pale, elbow long blond hair. Muffled sounds of heavy combat managed to poke through the constant ringing in Harold's ears, glancing outside he could see it was literarily raining combat helicopters, broken and engulfed in orange-red flames that appeared to vomit out pitch black smoke. A distant scream caught his attention, Harold turned to see where it came from and saw Olivia's face locked in a horrified scream as a trembling and cut finger pointed upwards at a battered and bloodied Karen holding someone by the throat, hovering in mid air over the hangar. She threw the man she held, making him smash through the roof of the hangar before his broken remains painted themselves on the asphalt like an all too thick crimson red paint with shreds of clothing stirred into it. Karen came down like a bolt of lightning, her feet punching ankle deep into the ground, sending head sized chunks of asphalt flying. 

"3 years Hal." She growled, her voice coming from a dark, deep throated place. "3 years I liked you, loved you, trusted you..." 

She walked up to him until they were a few meters apart, Olivia hiding behind Harold's back yet again, trembling. The red cape on her back had been shot to pieces, loose shreds danced and swayed on the wind independent of one another, gaping holes glancing up over Karen's shoulder whenever the wind allowed it, the glove on her left hand missing, her normally snow white suit smeared with oil, sot and blood. Her chest rose and sank in a slow, deep rhythm, streaks of light cut through the hole in the ceiling, illuminating the graceful dance of dust and smoke in the air. Harold's hand reached for his sidearm, his eyes locked on Karen and ignoring the protesting tugs from Olivia's frail little hands. 

"So why Hal?" Karen pleaded. 

"You've always been a bit of a loose canon Karen. Hot headed, quick to anger and you can throw tantrums like nobody's business." Harold started, his fingers lingering on the button on his gun holster. 

"The things you can do..." He shook his head. "Even now, some 30-40 years later science STILL can't make sense of it." 

"They were scared of you Karen. Who you are, what you are, what you could do." Harold's voice slowed down. "I was scared." 

"Hal, I never..." Karen started, but Harold cut her off. 

"Look at this Karen! Take a good look around you." He spread his arms wide out to his sides. "This is what we've feared all along." 

"Do you think I wanted this?!" Karen shot back. "That this was what I had planned all along?! To make the world my enemy?!" 

"I've always been alone Hal, even when you were by my side I was alone." Her eyes were getting moist with tears again. "20 years Hal, 20 goddamn years of putting out fires, digging people out of avalanches, prying open twisted car crashes... 20 years of search and rescue." 

"And I failed, I failed the world." Karen sniffed sharply and swiped off a tear with the back of her hand. "I'm not sure what you'd expected me to do. Shoot down the planes? Dive inside the towers so it wouldn't collapse? Physics don't work like that!" 

"I am not a God, Hal!" Karen jerked an angry finger at her own chest in a stabbing motion. "I can't be everywhere, all the time. I'm not a machine, I can't save everyone. I'd go insane if I thought like that." 

"And this..." Karen said with half a laugh, gestured towards the trembling Olivia. "Is their solution? An army of hybrids? That has Nietzsche's Übermensch written all over it. Hitler would be proud." 

"Well can you blame them?" Harold retorted. "Unreasonable times makes unreasonable demands of those who live in them. You've been off the hook since Hong Kong, Karen. Whether you admit it or not." 

"That. Was. Not. Me." Karen pressed out each word through clenched teeth. "That was your prototype acting on orders from some panic struck admiral or general or agency director." 

"I have no idea what you've been smoking Karen, but we do not have anyone capable of pulling of the Hong Kong attack." Hal counter. "Your powers were divided up among different prototypes, Olivia here only has your microscopic vision." 

"Divine has the full set." Karen snorted with disgust. "She got dressed up in a suit similar to mine, sent to Hong Kong to take out Edward Snowden and pin the blame on me, thus justifying the need for your hybrid Übermensch army." 

"Who the hell is Edward Snowden?" Harold asked dumfounded. 

"He was a whistle-blower, snatched a lot of dirty secrets from the NSA." Karen explained. "Guess someone found out he was about to talk, they panicked and gave Divine the green light." 

"Okay, that's some 9/11 truth tinfoil hat grade bullshit right there." Harold chuckled. "Assuming I believe you, where the hell do you fit into all this? You retired a decade ago." 

"I retired to raise my adoptive son, Douglas." Karen's voice sank. "Dr. Pieter Anton Cross helped us settled in Sogndal, Norway." 

"Douglas... my god, he was one of the victims in the Hong Kong attack." Harold said, to which Karen only nodded. "Even so, that does not justify your rampaging vendetta." 

"Hal, I can't let them get away with it." Karen pleaded. "I can't let them raise that army. It'll spiral out of control and take racism to a whole other level." 

"You don't know that, Karen." Harold retorted, his hand firm on his sidearm. "We can handle this. Have some trust in us." 

"Trust? You want me to trust you Hal?" Karen sneered. "I trusted you with my secrets, my most vulnerable state, I let you see me with my powers drained and you use it to help them make that THING!" 

"How will you handle this one Hal, huh?!" Karen pressed, taking a step forward. "Sentient weapons? Mind control? The good ol' CIA brainwashing program? Child soldiers? Fanatic patriots? How will you control them without compromising the ideals of the land of the brave, home of the free, Hal?!" 

"I..." Harold faltered in his words, licking his lips as Karen took another step forward, then another. 

"You're not answering my questions Hal. Don't tell me you didn't think this one through Hal. Kind of late for second thoughts and cold feet now, isn't Hal?" Karen's words came out like angry barks. 

An angry roar of a gun screamed over Karen's words, and Harold found himself standing mere inches away from Karen's face. His sidearm held in his hands, its barrel whistling out pale gunpowder smoke while lifted high over his head, Karen's naked left hand folded around its barrel from underneath. The sound of small feet scraping along the ground betrayed Olivia's futile escape attempt as Harold gave Karen a sly little smile. Karen moved her jaw around as if her tongue was fishing for something inside her mouth, before she audible puffed something out of her mouth, a smashed bullet clattering against the asphalt at her feet. The fingers tightened their grip on Harold's gun, making the metal scream and groan in protest while Karen's thumb pressed upwards, forcing the barrel to bend upwards. 

"I had to try." Harold said, giving a light shrug. 

"I know." Karen sighed before she planted the palm on her right hand on the left side of Harold's head, pushing him down and through the asphalt faster than a speeding bullet. 

Harold's head crushed like an egg under Karen's head, exploding in a torrent of blood, bones, brains and dust. Karen's blood splattered face looked up at Olivia with a glare and she just stood there crying silent tears, her face red as a freshly boiled lobster. She was heaving for breath, shaping words with her thin young lips as Karen rose to her full height, wiggling the fingers on her right hand. 

"Please don't kill me mommy." Olivia pleaded. 

"Don't you dare call me that." Karen growled, her eye sockets illuminating and her glare flared up in a searing hot stream of superheated plasma.


End file.
